


Then/Now

by FireFaceOutlook



Series: SaboAce Week, 2018 [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Happy (late) Birthday Sabo, Pre-AceSabo, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 16:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14061273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireFaceOutlook/pseuds/FireFaceOutlook
Summary: Sabo never lost his memories and he didn't go with the Revolutionaries.  Instead, he returned to his brothers.





	Then/Now

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: Somehow this turned out to be my 'happy birthday' story for Sabo this year, haha! I know I skipped Day 2, but I'll get it up. Eventually. Anyway, enjoy!**

Sabo found it harder to navigate Mount Corvo's forest than before. Maybe it was because he was being struck by dizzy spells and kept having to stop and rest, forgetting which way he was headed in the first place. Maybe being half blind had something to with it. Either way, he couldn't find his way back to the home of Dadan's bandits, despite his time spent living with them. It took him a whole week of surviving with nothing to defend himself with but his bare hands before he found signs of his brothers. They must've had multiple training sessions, since the whole clearing was wrecked. He smiled and ran his hand over a beat up tree trunk. Maybe if he stayed around that area, his brothers would return. So he only strayed a few feet in any direction to hunt for food, and there was a river nearby that he could drink from. It took another week of being on his own before, as he predicted, his brothers returned to the training area.

When they saw him, resting against one of the trees, they both froze and they paled until they almost had the same skin shade as he did. Sabo stood as Luffy began bawling, and he didn't notice Ace approaching with his fist raised until it connected with his face. They both reeled back away from each other, Ace clutching his hand while Sabo clutched his face, though Sabo was fairly sure that he was feeling more pain because his brother had hit him over the bandages, just below his eye. The still-healing burn throbbed painfully and Sabo wanted to cry, but he shoved down the urge when Ace straightened to glare at him with glossy eyes and trembling shoulders.

“Sabo!” Luffy screeched, throwing himself into the blond's arms, squeezing him like he would disappear.

Sabo buried his fingers in Luffy's hair as he held him close, returning the hug. He looked up at Ace as the brunet came close again. Sabo almost expected another hit, but Ace's arms wrapped around him as tightly as Luffy's.

“We thought you were _dead_!” Ace said, voice steady despite the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I'm sorry,” Sabo croaked, throat clogged with the need to cry with them, but _someone_ had to strong in this situation. “I love you guys,” he added desperately, because while they never had to say it before, but he couldn't stand the thought that he almost died without ever actually telling them that.

“Come on, you idiot,” Ace finally huffed in a watery voice, pulling back and trying to wipe his eyes discreetly. “Let's go home.”

_Home_. The very word made warmth spread throughout Sabo's chest, even when Luffy wouldn't let go and forced Sabo to carry him all the way to Dadan's. (They had to stop for a lot of breaks.) The bandits cried almost as much as Luffy and Ace had, and Dadan even hugged him like he was her own, despite her reservations about him staying with them the first time around.

  


Sabo didn't care much for his birthday. He never was happy celebrating it in the Outlook Household, considering his controlling parents* put a damper on everything. Even with Ace, Luffy, and the bandits, birthdays weren't really any different from any other day. Except it included cake. That's why Sabo was surprised to wake up on his sixteenth birthday and come downstairs to a room decorated with streamers and all of the bandits present along with his brothers and Makino.

“What's all this?” he asked with a laugh.

It was a nice surprise, and not dissimilar to what they'd banded together to do for Ace's sixteenth birthday, but that had just been because--

“This the last birthday you'll have with us,” Makino pointed out.

“Yeah!” Luffy added. “We even made presents for you, so get down here!”

Sabo obeyed before Luffy could pull him down the stairs against his will. They all sat around in a circle, eating meat that Ace and Luffy got up early to catch (yet Sabo still couldn't figure out how they snuck past him, since he's a light sleeper and they're not exactly stealthy) and splitting the cake. Then a sloppily wrapped present was shoved into his arms by an eager Luffy.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Open it,” Luffy whined.

Sabo obliged with a chuckle, falling silent when he pulled out a familiar pair of goggles. Except the strap had been lengthened to fit him again, like it did when he was a child. He could hardly make out the stitches in the strap.

“Luffy...”

“Makino helped me with the stitching,” his younger brother admitted. “But fixing it was my idea!”

“Thank you.”

“Well, mine's better,” Ace huffed, almost hitting Sabo in the face when he tossed his present over.

Sabo smiled. Though they were older now, Ace and Luffy's competitive streak never changed. He pulled his goggles around his neck and unwrapped the much-neater paper of Ace's present. His jaw dropped when he saw the top hat sitting in it. The fabric was the same color as his old one, and though the stitch job wasn't as neat as Luffy's (or rather, Makino's), but he could tell it was crafted carefully.

“I had to ask the hat shop lady how to do it,” Ace muttered. “But I did it _myself_.”

“You guys, these are the best presents I've ever gotten!”

“Hold on,” Makino interjected. “This is from them both.”

From Ace and Luffy's confused expression as Makino set the beautifully wrapped present in Sabo's lap, they definitely didn't have anything to do with this, but Sabo appreciated the gesture anyway. He opened it and seriously felt his eyes water. In the box within, there was a navy blue suit folded neatly.

“The jacket will be a little big,” Makino explained, “but that just means it'll fit you for quite a few years, and the way it was put together means you can just have it made to fit again instead of buying a new one if you outgrow it.”

Sabo had resigned himself to wearing Ace's hand-me-downs (because Ace was growing the fastest, and Luffy was too skinny to fit his old clothes) after the incident with the Celestial Dragons left his normal clothes in disrepair. He didn't mind them, but they always left him feeling exposed, since his outfit had been all long sleeves, minus the few times he wore new clothes provided by Makino, and Ace preferred shorts and t-shirts. (Not to mention there wasn't any way to hide his scars except wrapping them in fresh bandages every day.) But now, at the very least, he had a jacket again. Not to mention a hat, since his old one hadn't been recovered.

“You two didn't have to do this.” He wrapped his arms around Luffy and Ace's necks and pulled them into a tight hug. Ace made a show of grumbling and trying to get away while Luffy eagerly returned the hug, and over their shoulders, Sabo mouthed 'thank you,' to Makino and the bandits as well. “I love you guys!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ace muttered, cheeks pinking.

“Shishishi!” Luffy grinned broadly. “That means 'we love you too, Sabo,'” he translated – unnecessarily, because Sabo already knew.

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N: *Sometimes I forget that Stelly wasn't adopted until sometime after Sabo ran away, and Sabo didn't stick around very long after being forced back. Also, like with Day 1, I'll likely be returning to add more to this story. :D**


End file.
